This is Oskar Eustis’ first season as artistic director of the Public Theater, and of course we all wish him well. The Public is just about the last of our major nonprofit theaters not to sell out to Broadway (though it’s had its shaky moments). Crucially, it’s the only leading nonprofit that seems to be Read More
Memo: Kenneth B. Lerer, Chairman of the Board at the Public Theater
From: Me
All agree that George C. Wolfe will be a hard act to follow when he steps down next season as producer of the Public. I see you’ve formed a special search committee to find his successor, and will also Read More
My favorite Jewish homosexual socialist playwright, Tony Kushner, is on a roll, and we are glad. His joyful, wholly successful collaboration with the composer Jeanine Tesori on Caroline, or Change at the Public Theater is a quiet and monumental achievement in American musical theater.
Immensely moving and totally unsentimental, it touches a rare pinnacle. Read More
Miss me? Me, too!
As I was saying, my friends, I knew I would not be able to rest for a single second during the summer break until I’d solved the mystery of the banquet chairs in Henry V . And believe me, as the rain it raineth every day, there was enough time between Read More
George C. Wolfe’s love letter to Harlem at the fabled Apollo Theater on 125th Street is part of the longed-for cultural rebirth of the neighborhood. It’s a good thing, then-and who wouldn’t wish it well? I have my doubts about what another Starbucks, Disney store or Foot Locker will do for Harlem. I’m unsure how Read More
Mos Def, the hip-hop star from Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, is coming to Broadway, and from the way some people reacted to the news, you would have thought the next Zero Mostel had been plucked from the checkout line at a Key Food. “Mos What?” asked the Post.
Yet Mos Def, born Dante Smith and 28 years Read More
George C. Wolfe’s wonderful, messy and dangerous new musical The Wild Party has opened at the Virginia Theater on Broadway, and I don’t think I’ve ever loved a show more while seeing–and forgiving–its flaws. For one thing, it’s as if the show is making a lunatic kamikaze attack on the age of Disney. Which is Read More
